2009 Comics - what's in, what's out

The new year brings many attempts at resolution, many fail. Here's what I will be following comic-wise for 2009, as well as what's getting the boot.

DC
Superman and Action Comics will always be bought. Johns and Robinson have done a great job returning the book to its expected high-level. The imminent off-worlding of Superman has got me very intrigued, as I like my Superman stories more sci-fi.
Booster Gold - another book that I will continue to follow to the ends of time.
The Brave and the Bold - after the Green Lantern 4-parter, going to trade on this one.
Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps. DC's two most consistently engaging and well-done ongoings.
The Legion of Super-Heroes. With this issue, # 50, the book takes another cancellation. Oh well, see you in a few for the next try, future kids!
Justice Society of America. Four more issues and Johns is gone again. The Jack of Fables team is coming on board, but I haven't gotten to the point in Fables where JoF jumps off, so they're an unknown quantity; see you in the trades, JSA!
Batman. Definitely down for the Gaiman 2-parter; after that, gone til Morrison comes back.

Marvel
The Avengers books - after the debacle that was Secret Invasion, New gets cut at 50, Mighty is dropped as of 21 and Dark is a no-go from the gate. How did they fuck this up so badly?
Captain America and Daredevil. When Brubaker goes, I'm out unless someone with seriously good chops comes on. Since those days seem very far away, we're good.
Ghost Rider. After the next issue, done. I haven't been loving this, despite some good concepts. This book actually read better under Daniel Way.
Iron Fist. I'm actually liking the Swierczynski/Foreman direction - keeper.
Thor. Marvel's best ongoing, by a longshot. It's been 25 years since I even liked Thor.
All Mark Millar's Marvel work. Fantastic Four. Wolverine. Kick-Ass. It's all been very good so far. I'm there til he's not.
Runaways. Before I began my man-crush on Vaughan's mature work, I fell head over it for Runaways, which is far and away one of the best things I've read this decade. Moore and Ramos are doing a nice job taking this over.
Last, but not least - anything that Abnett and Lanning are doing at Marvel. Singlehandedly (or is that doublehandedly? They are two people...), they've managed to not only reinvigorate Marvel's cosmic community of characters, but also make Nova and the Guardians of the Galaxy viable monthlies. Johns may be more prolific and Morrison may be the master, but these guys are my favorites, hands down.

What am I missing? Let me know.

Never Too Early to Start Talking About This, I Say

I would like to start something, if you don't mind. We're just starting 2009, which is the end of the "oughties". Which means, that's right, the decade began in 2000, which means that the millenium began in 2000 - WHY-TOO-FRAKKIN'-KAY, babe.

Now being the math teacher/math administrator/math lover that I am, I understand the intelligentsia that say (in a snooty blue-blood sneer), "Well, Muffy, since there was never a year zero, the first year was 1, the 10th year was 10, that's the first decade." Well, yes, that's empirically true. BUT, it throws everything off. When the leadoff digit changes for the first time in a thousand years, that's cause enough for celebration. Simply put, the whole "no year 0" is only a problem once. Let it go.

Anyway, look how it works out. The 1960s - began in 1960 and ended in 1969. Nice; neat. The 1970s - 1970 to 1979. The 1980s - well, they began in 1977 and ended in 1992, but that's a personal thing.

And so , the 2000s began on 1/1/2000 and ends 12/31/2009. Which means what, kidlets?

Best of the year AND best of the decade lists.

So, over the next few weeks, I'm going to start raw lists of best comics, movies, TV and music. Caveats - if a show began in 1999, but did the majority of its work in the 2000s, it's in. Comics - mixed bag: runs, one-shots, arcs, minis and all that good stuff on a level playing field. Music - we're going with acts AND albums. Movies? Who knows - I've had kids for most of this decade.

Four, Containing Five, Done by Three

I've said earlier that I've hit a wall with mainstream comics over the last year. There's no one thing to blame, but I know that I've been here before. Usually what gets me going is a detour into less mainstream material.

The final push for this came in the most unlikely of comic book fans: my cousin Joanne. Country cousin comes up from Florida to visit for a few weeks and trips over her past into a temp job with...wait for it...DC Comics! So, guess who's been getting lovely little care packages...that's right, city cousin Marc. I tell her to read Watchmen and Sandman as a primer for working in the world of DC Comics; she reads the former, but scoops me and goes to Y: the Last Man, knocking it down in under a month, raving all the way.

Not to be undone in my own house, I started scrummaging around the closet, behind the Countdowns, the Death of the New Gods, the Secret Invasions to find the trade paperback stacks. What did we unearth? First tpb of Fables and the first seven tpbs of 100 Bullets. Went to the store with some Christmas money and less than an hour later - some Y: the Last Mans and Ex Machinas.

Which to read first, though? Looking at the back covers, I noticed that the first trade of each (4) had the first 5 issues of each book by 3 creators. So I read each one and decided to let that dictate which one I finish first.

• Y: the Last Man - really enjoyed this first blast. Vaughan juggles the time frame and the many characters expertly (gee, now why did they hire him for LOST?). Alas, poor Yorick doesn't get much screen time, but that seems right at this point. Pia Guerra's art, on the surface, looks very traditional, especially for a Vertigo book. But it's bold, clean and expressive and reminds us that this is a story about characters more than concepts and it works. Also, remember Truog and Hazlewood's work on Morrison's Animal Man? Good touchstone there.
  
• Ex Machina - didn't think I would like this as much as Y; I'm not overly political and was never a big Tony Harris fan. Also, the revisiting of NY events puts me in Law and Order territory - not a fan there, either. However, Harris' work is extremely good, getting a wide variety of characters to look, well, various. Vaughan's exploration of political themes is thought-provoking, if not a bit obvious in its leanings. Anyway, I'm hooked here, too.
  
• Fables - I've stayed away from this book because I didn't want to sully the fond memories I have for Sandman. Foolish me. This book works similar avenues, but does so with a wittier and more urbane style.
  
• 100 Bullets - Having been a HUGE fan of Brubaker's Criminal over the last two years, I've let this book slide. But the two mini arcs collected here work very well. But it was the 8 page mini-story at the end that made me confident that Azzarello is a master storyteller. Risso's artwork is less realistic than the art in Fables, which is initially strange - it is the most reality-based book of the four - but it is also dynamic and dynamite.

Here's the final line-up:

1. Y: the Last Man - it's complete. I don't want to have to wait.
2. 100 Bullets - it's complete next month. Again, I'm not a fan of waiting. Also, don't want to read two Vaughan books back-to-back.
   
3. Ex Machina - it's the next one to complete - it's at 40 and he's going to 50. You see the trend.
4. Fables - no end in sight on this one, so it goes on the back of the line.
   

Final Thoughts on LOST before Wednesday

I need to concentrate on some other things than LOST this week - 24 and Battlestar Galactica need my love too, as do my iPod and comic books, so just a few thoughts:

• Why do the promo pictures look so damned PhotoShopped and inorganic? There's one in this week's TV Guide that looks pretty faked too. Aren't they all in Hawaii?
• The thing that will kill me on Wednesday will be this decision: do I start at 9:00 and deal with the commercials or wait until 9:20-9:25 to facilitate the DVR commercial blitz-through? I have a feeling Laura's going to make me wait. That 20 minutes may be just too much - I mean, it'll be on.
  

Thoughts on LOST, Season 5

With the 5th season of LOST approaching rapidly, I'd just like to put down some thoughts about it.

• The media blitz. This is one show that I've watched from the start (most of my other favorites - The Shield, Battlestar Galactica, How I Met Your Mother - I've come to the party late.) So I can really see that ABC has really thrown a lot at this. Chief is the partnership with the earnestly piano-centric band The Fray; iTunes has had a 3 minute trailer up for a few weeks using a mix of old and new show clips, inter cut with footage of the band on a bridge (Jack's from the Season 3 closer?) I'm fine with this, as long as the song doesn't show up in the actual show. I believe the word is pandering and the show doesn't need this.

• Speaking of the trailer, I have not heard or seen one person mention the subliminal flash of a new logo, one for "Ajira Airlines". First of all, the introduction of a second airline into the narrative opens up a lot of questions and elevates a normally mundane thing into something of a character (a la Nakatomi Plaza in Die Hard.) Also, a visit to this site offers some interesting Easter Eggs for fans.

• I was heartened early last fall when news made the rounds that the season was going to pioneer a new storytelling device where the flashes, back or forth, would not be as directly obvious. That's great to me - I want to work at my TV drama - and I appreciate the show runners not overstaying their innovations. But...

• But, then I was disheartened when Damon Lindelof (hey, remember when it was "J.J. Abrams' LOST", and now it's "Cuse and Lindelof's LOST"?) made some comments about how fans were nervous that the two factions (off- and on-islanders) wouldn't reunite for most of the season. Hmmm. I don't know how long they plan to wait for reuniting the whole cast, but if they're all back in a group hug by the end of the second week, that's not going to play well with me.
  

• Initial spoiler-free reviews have indicated that there's little to nothing to worry about, which is good. The reports that say the first episode has a mind-bending opening, along with story beats that open up a slew of new possibilities is great.

Well, we've still got a week and a half. (sigh.)

Random thoughts

Happy New Year, all (both?) of you out there!

Besides the obvious and cliched resolutions, here's a few me-centric ones that I'm going to try and keep this year.

1. Listen to more new music, as opposed to mainly reissues of 15 (or more)-year-old stuff that I should have listened to when it came out.
2. Read more big-boy books. Yes, I love my comics, but they don't read well on the bus.
3. Read less shitty comics. 2008 was not a good year with me and the 32-page, 4-color floppy, but I had some December revelations that bode well for my relationship with the sequential narrative.
   
4. Now that my free 1-year subscription to Rolling Stone magazine has run out, I shall never read it again. I will, however, continue to explore my conflicted history (roughly half my life) with it, culminating with a piece intending to prove that the magazine actually did its level best to stunt my musical development while I was reading it.
5. Write more about TV. It's easily my favorite medium for artistic expression and where I spend the majority of the post-dinner, post-kids-in-bed time, so why not sing it from this mountain?